What remains of something when most is gone?
The work in the exhibition Residual Noise weaves together narratives that touch on notions of collective trauma, historical weight, and dogma through mediated imagery bringing into question the long lasting and immeasurable effects of conflict and distress.

In the work Berlin Project 1945-2013, Barrie Jones has photographed the scars left on architecture in Berlin dated back to the Second World War. Mostly patched, these surface tears from shrapnel and bullet holes act as a physical reminder of the conflict that threatened to destroy an entire generation. Jones points to an ordeal that continues to have political and social ramifications. His objective gaze recognizes a past, which is embodied in the surface of patched concrete and stone.

Kate Henderson’s series, Disintegrations 1 – 45, is a collection of images found on the Internet. Working with low-res images of various types of cloud, dust and debris, Henderson’s work feels both familiar and disorienting as one tries to pinpoint the events embedded in the pixelated image. Henderson’s work not only explores the idea of shared memory by navigating the internet as a source of archive, but also highlights the oversaturation and loss that happens in the breakdown when an image is translated from digital media to print.

“efficiency, precision and dignity”, a two channel video by Pascale Théorêt-Groulx, uses The Canadian Forces Manual for Drill and Ceremony as an entry point to instruct participants in a set of tasks. The booming anonymous voice of the instructor commands the contributors to perform a directionless group of gestures that begin to spiral into the unknown and the absurd. While humorous on the surface, Théorêt-Groulx’s work sharply critiques the power structures in the given scenario and further questions the dogmatic nature of the source material.

What Remains of something when most is gone? This question is seeded in the works phrased in this exhibition. With Jones what remains is resurfaced and transformed in the preservation of these architectural wounds as a form of remembrance and moving forward. With Henderson what remains is a tapestry of events signified as a bombardment of images that one cannot separate nor define, but is constantly in the process of negotiating. With Théorêt-Groulx she is drawing political lines, exposing the ideological apparatus that makes conflict happen. Together these pieces collectively navigate history and how it is presented, remembered, forgotten and interpreted.